While it may sound like a headline straight off the presses at The Onion, I assure you it is not. NASA will be “bombing” the Moon tomorrow morning -- not once, but twice. To be accurate, there is no bomb per se. The NASA LCROSS mission will slam a spacecraft into the Moon’s Cabeus crater at 7:31AM EST time on Friday.

The mission will happen in two stages: a rocket delivering the impact payload will send the payload craft at close to 6,000 miles per hour into the crater. The delivery rocket, specially equipped to detect the presence of water will chase behind, fly through the debris cloud, and then smack into the crater approximately four minutes later.  The hope is, that by kicking up enough Moon stuff into the “air,” scientists will be able to detect the presence of water that may be hidden just under the surface.  The crater was chosen as a likely candidate because it lives in the shadows and hasn’t seen sunlight in perhaps millions of years.  It’s cold temperatures may have allowed for frozen water to remain locked away, whereas moisture exposed to the heat and light would have boiled off into space countless ages ago. It’s likely the moisture itself was delivered from violent impacts in the past, when ice laden meteorites crashed into the lunar surface.

So what’s the point?  The discovery of water on the Moon may mean it can support life. Not life native to the Moon of course, but it could help support human life. A “Space Base” on the Moon may some day make use of the moisture for drinking water, and even splitting it into its constituent parts to make breathable air. If moisture is detected, NASA has plans for follow up missions to drill several feet into the Moon to get a better look.

Aside from being able to detect moisture, the chase craft is also equipped with high definition video cameras. NASA has an entire event planned, including a stream of the live footage. The event can be seen on the NASA channel on cable, or live at the NASA LCROSS website. It begins at 6:15AM. The debris cloud from the impact is expected to be large enough that it should be visible to the amateur astronomer with a typical hobby telescope.

Just some final notes: For those of you who spend more time hugging trees than reading science books, please take a moment to put this impact in context. The force of the impact in relation to the size of the Moon is on the order of a mosquito hitting the windshield of a dump truck at highway speed. It pales in comparison to the impacts that have rained down on the surface of the moon for millions of years.  This will not harm the Moon -- how do you think the giant crater NASA is targeting got there in the first place? And… for the conspiracy theorists who think it’s cover to test weapon capabilities -- I’m not even going to try to convince you otherwise. We already know sending things to the Moon is ripe for spinning convoluted tales…

I’ll leave you with this prophetic clip from Mr. Show.

This morning, in an unanimous vote, the U.S. Senate has agreed to delay the government mandated digital television transition. The target has been moved from the original February 17th date to June 12th.

(Updated: The bill has been voted down in the house. More info at the bottom.)

Media reports have been all over the map, with sources suggesting anywhere from 5 million to 20 million US households are unprepared for the transition.  There have also been reports of as many as 2.5 million on the FCC’s waiting list for their converter box coupon program.  13.5 million coupons have been passed out, but it’s estimated that roughly half have not been used.  The coupons carry a 90 day expiration, and as the unused coupons expire those on the waiting list will get a shot at one.

President Obama has called for an additional $850 million as part of his stimulus package to provide additional funding to the FCC coupon program.

The FCC has of course already auctioned off and collected it’s nearly $20 billion dollars to re-license the wireless spectrum that would have been freed in just 3 weeks.  (Why again, does the FCC need another $850 million of taxpayer’s dollars to cover the coupon shortfall? Anyway…)

Major players AT&T and Verizon will have to wait until June to begin using their newly acquired slice of the airwaves, though this morning’s bill includes a 116 day extension to the end of their original licenses as compensation.

(Shameless plug warning: who needs OTA anyway, when you’ve got Artvoice TV?)

Update, Wednesday Jan 28: Despite the unanimous vote and the support from President Obama, it turns out this bill was not a shoo-in after all. Because the bill had been fast-tracked in the House, it required 2/3rds votet here before reaching the President’s desk; however, this morning it was shot down by a 256 to 168 vote. So it’s not over yet folks. The House may vote next week for a second time on the issue. In the mean time, we can say the great digital delay… has been delayed.

Election ‘08 is now in the history books – so I figured it’s time to take a look backward, and a look forward at some relevant headlines.

Hacking Democracy

First, we’ll take a look at one of the best kept secrets of the campaign season, from both sides, care of a Newsweek article published just today.  Over the summer, the FBI had its hands full with simultaneous cyber crime investigations: the hacking of the Obama campaign computer system(s), and the hacking of the McCain campaign computer system(s).  While the intrusions have been acknowledged,  little else has been released or confirmed yet.  At this point, it’s known for sure that the FBI was involved, that “a large number of files” were stolen from the Obama side, and that the attacks came from a “foreign entity” and definitely did not come from the opposing sides.  The McCain campaign systems were intruded on in a similar fashion as the Obama systems, but the extent of the compromise on their side was unmentioned.  The rest is speculation of course: security experts have suggested the attacks likely came from China or Russia, and anyone’s best guess is that the goal of such an intrusion was to gain an inside line on procedures and policies used by the campaigns for a leg up in future dealings with the to-be president. (H/T to Newsweek)

This of course wasn’t the only politically motivated cyber-crime this campaign season – I’m sure many recall the Sarah Palin e-mail intrusion back in September.  Though it’s significance is near nil at this point, we’ll remember it as the day our servers felt the shock wave of a web traffic explosion.  If anyone is still interested: David Kernell, a college student in Tennessee, and the son of Tennessee democratic representiative Mike Kernell, was indicted by grand jury in late October.  His trial begins on December 16th, and faces up to 5 years and fines.  Not so “anonymous” now, eh David?  A court has also ordered the e-mails in both of governor Palin’s Yahoo! accounts be preserved for further investigation.

Another dishonorable mention is the state of Ohio election information and registration website that also came under attack, and experienced some brief downtime in late October.  (H/T to Reuters)

Technology Promises

I also want to give a nod back to another item I’ve talked about here: Science Debate 2008.  We’ve got a list of policies and action-items promised to us from pre-president-elect Obama in the realm of technology.  I’ll be saving a copy and keeping score for the next four to eight years.

Along the same lines is Obama’s “Blueprint for Change” video on technology issues.  Maybe you missed it?  Don’t feel bad; for whatever reason, this wasn’t released until the night before the election, effectively burying it in the rest of the 11th hour buzz.

Hi-Tech Election Day Coverage

Election night itself was a grand display of technology as well.  CNN debuted it’s new “hologram” technology – much to the chagrin of pocket protector pencil neck purists who are still complaining two days later that the effect isn’t actually a hologram.  “True” hologram or not, I personally found it a bit silly.  We’ll see if CNN or others bother with this technique down the road.

Ratings speak volumes though, and CNN enjoyed second place of 14 major networks covering the event with 12.3 million viewers.  ABC was the victor, at just over 13 million viewers.  In all, it’s estimated about 71 million viewers tuned in on Tuesday to watch the results unfold.  As impressive at it sounds, it’s still over 25 million shy of this year’s past Super Bowl.  Apparently the world’s couch potatoes are still more interested in the Patriots than in patriotism. (Nielsen’s complete ratings here.)

Nielsen also kept an eye to the web to gauge coverage ratings in cyberspace.  There’s a comprehensive list here if interested; CNN, MSNBC and Yahoo! News being the top three destinations for surfers on Tuesday. The official campaign sites also received a boost on Tuesday, with Obama’s site receiving 1.2 million unique visitors, and McCain’s site receiving 479,000 unique visitors.

The Future

Lastly, let’s look ahead to some new developments that will affect us going forward.

While not related to presidential politics per se, this is still a governmental policy decision that flew under the radar with all the elections buzz, that could mean huge developments in the wireless arena.  On Tuesday, the FCC approved a measure to free up “white spaces” for unlicensed (read: free but regulated) use.  In short, this means unused areas of the wireless spectrum in the general area of digital TV transmissions can be used by consumer devices.  This coveted piece of intangible mathematical electromagnetic real estate means higher bandwidth (faster) transmission of information to and from consumer devices, at greater distances than the current public bands allow.  It’s been a long fought battle mostly centered around issues of interference with licensed bands (at least, that’s the PR friendly argument – it’s probably been a long fought battle because telecommunications companies have sunk billions into competing technologies that may have just been rendered obsolete.)  To appease the interference complaints (some of which are probably valid), devices will have to be extremely smart: they’ll be required to be GPS aware, and to communicate over the Internet with a central database to announce their position and ask permission for an interference free frequency.  There’s a loophole for less intelligent devices, though they’ll have to pass some pretty rigorous interference tests.  You can read more here.  Dell claims to have laptops with “white space radio” already in the works that you can learn about here.

The last “bit” we have to pass on is some news about some technology related appointments to the Obama transition team.  Named to the team include Google philanthropy officer Sonal Shah, and Julius Genchowski who is a former IAC executive and former chief council to former FCC chairman Reed Hundt.  Rumors abound about Google CEO Eric Schmidt may be in the running for U.S. Chief Technology Advisor as well.

Here’s the scenario.  It’s been a long night of partying on Chippewa or in Allentown.  You’re not quite sure how you got home, but there you sit, all alone.  Suddenly, that proverbial light bulb illuminates above your head.  (Ok, more like flickers dimly.)  Now is a great time to get in touch with your ex and reconcile old differences!

Not so fast says Google Labs.  They’ve introduced a new optional feature for GMail called “Mail Goggles” to keep you from e-mailing while intoxicated.  Yes, really.

It’s functionality is simple.  First, you configure a schedule when you’re likely to be enjoying a few (too many) libations.  During these hours, you’re presented with a few math problems and a sixty second timer to come up with the answers before GMail will allow your mail to send.  The idea is if you’re in a right enough state of mind to answer their arithmetic quiz, then you can take responsibility for whatever happens after you’ve hit “Send.”  The question difficulty level is adjustable, depending on your math ability to start with, or just how well you want to protect yourself.

Of course, if you’re sober, you can probably remember how to turn the thing off anyway.  Note that it’s configured by default for 10PM-4AM.  Buffalonians might want to move that up to 6AM – to adjust for our locality’s service laws, and a trip to Jim’s Steakout.

So now, when the weekend arrives and you try to send your former significant other a passionate diatribe in the heat (dizziness) of the moment, you’ll get a screen that looks like this:

Solve the questions in time – great, you’re sober enough to remember what you did in the morning.  Get one wrong or run out of time?  No e-mail for you – GMail will instead suggest you get yourself a glass of water and head off to bed.

If this appeals to you as more than just a joke, you’ll want to log into your GMail, click “Settings,” choose the “Labs” tab on the far right, find Mail Googles about half way down the list, enable it, and “Save Settings.”  Then return to your Inbox, click that same Settings link at the top, and you’ll see the Mail Googles configuration in your “General Settings”.

Now if only somebody would come up with a way to prevent drunk dialing, texting, MySpacing, Facebooking, instant messaging, and so on.  Maybe the million dollar idea is just a muzzle and pair of handcuffs that only come off when you can answer a few math questions.  Regardless, plan on seeing copy-cat apps for the iPhone and Android soon… I can feel it coming from from here.

By today we’re well aware that the e-mails posted were legitimate, as the McCain campaign has made a statement regarding the situation, and an investigation is under way.

The Register is reporting the investigation may be relatively easy to conclude.  The attacker attempted to cover their tracks using ctunnel.com, a proxy service.  This way, when Yahoo searches their logs, the visits would have appeared from ctunnel.com, rather than the address information of the person(s) who had broken in to the account.  It just so happens that ctunnel.com logs connections for situations such as this, and thanks to screen shots showing a large portion of the ctunnel.com URL in the address bar of the web browser, it’s going to be pretty easy to match that to the log files.

Anyway, now that the dust has settled some, I thought maybe I’d take a few moments to respond to the slew of comments and hatemail about the Pailin e-mails.  It doesn’t seem many understand the nature of the situation, and mainstream media is having a field day with spin and framing the story for whoever candidate they’re biased to.  So here’s my thoughts:

(more…)

UPDATE: For a follow-up on the situation, see here.

It appears the infamous group of cyber-mischief makers “anonymous” are up to their old tricks, and this time they had Governor Palin in their sights.

While this has not been completely confirmed, it seems that some time over night or early this morning, somebody was able to compromise “gov.palin@yahoo.com,” by apparently discovering the password to the account.  The password was posted to a public forum, 4chan.org, and a field day ensued.  Within a short time, another “anonymous” had changed the password on the account to effectively lock everybody else out, and later this morning the account had been locked completely by Yahoo.

Anonymous is the same group responsible for such stunts as the NFL dirty bomb threat in October 2006, and has more recently been behind organized global protests of Scientology.

Just last week, the Washington Post published an article about Sarah Palin’s use of this very same Yahoo e-mail account.  Palin’s use of a public e-mail service rather than the secure state e-mail system raised some eyebrows, as she was potentially communicating about sensitive matters, off the record, on a third party service.  Arguing that she should be using the secure and encrypted state e-mail system, an activist in her state had called for the release of her e-mails.

Well, it looks like lawyers won’t be necessary, as “anonymous” might have done the job for them.

The images below were posted to a Photobucket account owned by a user named “anoncrack.”  They include a message to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell, a message of encouragement from Amy McCorkell (a member of Palin’s Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in Alaska), general screen shots of Palin’s inbox, a message from the “anonymous” who apparently tried to close off access to Palin’s inbox, and some family photos that were found in attachments.

UPDATE: 2:00PM EST, Wired News is now reporting this story, and has received confirmation from Amy McCorkell that she indeed sent the message that appears in one of the screen shots.

SpaceRef.com reports that NASA has discovered a computer virus on one of the computers located on the International Space station.

The virus (well, technically classified as a worm) was identified as W32.Gammima.AG, and Symantec describes it as a relatively low-risk threat.  Its purpose is to steal passwords to on-line games, and presumably sends them back to its author(s).  It normally spreads via removable media, like memory cards or thumb drives.  Other than being an annoyance, unless you play the games the worm targets, there really isn’t any damage done.  NASA gets lucky this time (assuming the astronuats aren’t playing World of Warcraft up there!)

Just goes to show you still need to run anti-virus even when you’re 230 miles above the Earth.